I still wake at dawn’s grey light – cocooned in soft sadness, your warmth beside me – and take my worn spirit to that wood. The one beside the road, the sign beside the stile, the name that always slips my mind.

Steep climb through trees; high plateau held beneath a winter’s sky, edged with low sunlight and cut by an ice road the children pretend to skate. Their voices ring in chilled air.

Then our descent back down, steps quickening through sudden thrilling dusk. And, to cap it all, owls calling to and fro across the valley, to claim the coming night. A perfect day, do you remember too?

That wood beside the road, the sign beside the stile, the name that always slips my mind.

M J Lewis 2019

Have just learned about this challenge from gahlearner who says, ‘I learned about this challenge only a week ago. What a great idea. You get a picture and reply to it, either with another picture, or a flash fiction, a poem, comic, you name it, but it must be yours, not someone else’s.’ I’m a bit late this week, but the open nature of this challenge really appealed on this blue Monday morning!

In the library old men play at chess; polite handshakes, gently murmured notes of victory and defeat.

I take the long way home, darkness at five o’clock. Empty pavements, October roses, soft tread on leaves that smell of childhood. Past lighted sitting rooms, bonfire night poster tied to railings. Could be the sixties but for the old hospital newly converted; cars sit in ambulance bays, fitted kitchen where once the night nurse penned a love letter in a circle of soft light.

You never wanted to be an old man, gave up chess; never owned a dressing gown.

Well, you got your wish.

Miranda Lewis 2018

I love this time of year. The garden has (almost) been put to bed, clocks have gone back and ’tis the season for night walking and glancing into lighted windows – for the melancholic, to be fitted in between Hallowe’en and the first, way-too-cheerful Christmas trees going up.

As it’s Wednesday welcome to Friday Fiction hosted as ever by the writer Rochelle. Thanks to Jeff Arnold for the photo, to all who visit and most especially to those who stay to comment.

And if you fancy a quick melancholic read my novella, Dream Girl, is still staggeringly good value at only 99p. Who says nothing stays the same?

In a meadow a blackbird peeped at my intrusion and cows gathered at the fence to say, ‘Nobody is allowed, except our friend the solitary gardener.’

Now he has locked his modest shed and gone. But look around and he is everywhere, in root and leaf and sky. And in his dreams does he still tramp the lawns and greet the trees he tended?

Miranda Lewis 2018

Welcome to 100-word Friday Flash Fiction, hosted each week by the talented writer Rochelle. (Get a sneak preview of here novel in progress here.) Thanks to the appropriately named Nathan Sowers for this week’s photo prompt.

Where else could I go this week, but out into the garden? But not just any garden; this dream garden is based on the real garden tended for the past decade by the Anxious Gardener. You can read his final, wistful farewell to this particular garden on his blog here, and also catch a glimpse of some beautiful photos, including that drunk laburnum.

You left early, mid-sentence; grass uncut, the bird table you were attempting to mend face down on the patio. Mind you, you tidied away that last bottle to the very last drop.

Back home, I have taken to washing up teaspoons, burning old postcards, composting diaries. Don’t be alarmed; I am but a finger’s stretch closer to the shadows. I won’t say anything significant, at least until I’ve cleared this cupboard.

My partner on the other hand is accumulating wood and screws, enough to open a hardware shop. Or build an arc. Or in the event, our coffins. Now that’s tidy.

Miranda Lewis, 2018

(Genre: unreliable memoir)

Welcome readers and writers to Friday Fiction, hosted by the indefatigable, inestimable Rochelle, with thanks to Ronda Del Boccio for the photo prompt. Now you might be thinking it isn’t Friday and this isn’t really fiction, but on the other hand it is 100 words.

Thanks to all who visit and most especially those who stay to comment. To graze on a whole pasture of stories click here.

Mornings Gavel carries scalding tea up creaking flights to the bedroom, where we lie buried under heaps of eiderdowns. Through ice-frosted glass I look out over snow-blanketed fields to the far horizon. Not a soul.

Each afternoon I neglect to pack my suitcase.

Dinner is sardines with champagne in front of the fire, scent of mothballs rising from my stole, once owned, you claim, by a duchess who ran away with the under-groomsman.

Far away in a suburban cul-de-sac, a phone rings into the silence of my spotless house.

Miranda Lewis 2018

Welcome to Friday Flash Fiction!

We have not had real snow this year in London, for which I feel both grateful and jealous. Thanks to Dale Rogerson for the lovely photo and to our host Rochelle who travels the world of Friday Fiction through all seasons, all weathers.

Thanks to all who stop by to read and most especially to those who stay to comment.

For anyone interested this is a companion piece to this Friday Fiction, written almost a year ago. I’m not a quick worker!

A trip outside the post-Christmas fug to the compost bin reveals green shoots in sodden soil: the promise of snowdrops, the loveliest of flowers. The days lengthen, the world renews itself despite our dulled perception it is otherwise.

To plant a garden is to open oneself to sweet celebration – spring tulips and forget-me-nots, summer lavender and roses – but also disappointment, failures, the need to shrug and carry on.

For whatever, after summer will come the dying days of autumn – pruning, leaf gathering, the fragrant harvest of rot and decay. Until, once more, that long deep sigh of winter.

Miranda Lewis 2017

I’m either very late to Friday Fiction or just in time to wish Friday fiction contributors and all who visit a very happy and productive new year. May your adjectives be apt and your adverbs few. Thanks as ever to our host Rochelle and to Ted Strutz for the photo.

And of course, good gardening. My resolution for 2018 – lots of flowers (always!) but more vegetables too.

Oh joy in the unwrapping! Behold the snugness of the fit. Glory in the crowning splendour of the pom-pom! ‘Thanks Grandma!’ Then, miracle of miracles – the first soft flakes of snow.

Praise Christmas knitters everywhere and peace to woolly hat wearers near and far.

Miranda Lewis 2017

Welcome to Friday Fiction hosted by the talented writer Rochelle. Thanks also to Bjorn Rudberg for the great photo. Thanks to all who visit and most especially to those who stay to comment. Hats off to Friday Fictioneers gathered here. Please visit and comment widely!